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Forum: Faraday by any other name – Andy Coghlan follows the progress of an innovative partnership between industry and academia

By ANDY COGHLAN

Whatever happened to those Faraday thingies? You know, those centres
that were meant to bridge the chasm between universities and industry so
that companies could at last turn government-funded research into cash?

Well, the idea of Faraday centres lives on, though more in flesh and
blood than bricks and mortar. In the summer of 1992, advocates of the Faraday
‘principle’ – including Prince Charles and Sir John Fairclough, Margaret
Thatcher’s chief scientist – set up the so-called ‘Postgraduate Training
Partnership’ (PTP) scheme, in which graduates would spend three years shuttling
between a university and an industrial research organisation, working on
a project specific to industry’s needs. The scheme, a testing ground for
full-blooded Faraday centres, has been going for two years, and was recently
judged by its sponsors to be a roaring success.

But why does this Faraday nonsense matter, and where did it all begin?
The idea got going with the increasing realisation, in the late 1980s, that
British manufacturing was sliding down the pan. A report published in 1991
by the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology found that
in 1979, manufactured goods earned Britain a trade surplus of £4
billion. But by 1989, the Lords reported, Britain was £15 billion
in the red.

When the scale of the devastation in manufacturing became clear, people
began to suggest remedies. One came from the Centre for Exploitation of
Science and Technology, an independent think-tank funded by government and
industry. A 1991 CEST report highlighted some German business habits which,
it argued, could help the recovery of British industry.

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One of the key differences between British and Teutonic industry lies
in the strength of the so-called Mittelstand in Germany, the powerful rank
of 20 000 or so small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) which form the
powerhouse of German production. CEST found that one of the major strengths
of the Mittelstand was its ability to tug useful technologies and technologists
out of the academic world, enabling companies to stay at the leading edge
of world technology.

The catalyst for this interaction is a network of 35 research establishments
called Fraunhofer institutes, where industrialists and academics can swap
ideas, advice and technology. CEST drooled over the idea of setting up similar
institutes in Britain to accelerate the uptake of new methods by lumpen
and technologically backward companies, especially engineering-based SMEs.
CEST proposed the establishment of British Fraunhofer institutes, to be
called Faraday centres. In 1992, the PTP pilot got going, and CEST hoped
that this would be a prelude to the Faraday centres.

But the initiative then took a couple of knocks. The House of Lords
Select Committee on Science and Technology dismissed the need for the centres
in a report in February 1993. At CEST, backers of the centres were furious,
not least because much of the committee’s evidence came from the pharmaceuticals
and chemicals industries. These sectors have little to gain from Faraday-type
institutions because their existing links with universities are so good.
The committee did not interview anyone from the SMEs, and spoke to only
a handful of representatives from engineering, which has most to gain from
Faraday centres. Soon after the report from the Select Committee on Science
and Technology was published, the government also got cold feet about Faradays.
But CEST persevered with the original PTPs, and at a recent London seminar
to review their progress, they were given enthusiastic approval.

CEST originally launched the PTPs to test whether the partnerships would
fulfil the Faraday objective of getting keen, technologically gifted people
from the academic world into SME-dominated sectors of the engineering industry.
With money from the Department of Trade and Industry and the Science and
Engineering Research Council, CEST established five partnerships between
universities and industrial research organisations, institutes that carry
out contract research for groups of SMEs.

Fifty students enroled in the scheme in the first year, with 10 assigned
to each partnership. Another 50 registered in 1993, and another 50 will
enrol this year, bringing the total number of students – or ‘associates’,
as they are known – to 150.

Neil Johnston, who is managing the scheme for CEST, is very pleased
with progress so far, adding that there were 20 applicants for each place.
‘We’ve been very impressed with the calibre of our associates, and they’ve
bedded down very quickly,’ he says.

The associates – half of them women – seem to have enjoyed their stints
so far, and even express mild disdain for their academic brethren. ‘You
get stuck in one department in academia, and you can hibernate,’ says Tamsin
Wright, an associate hoping to develop nontoxic flame-retardant materials
at the British Textile Technology Group in Leeds. She enjoys mixing with
people from the eight companies funding her work there. ‘I feel what I’m
doing is really beneficial to industry, and that gives me a buzz,’ she says.

Chris Greenshields, an associate of the partnership between the Water
Research Centre and Imperial College, London, is attempting to find ways
of preventing plastic mains pipes from bursting. Greenshields says: ‘You
are almost your own boss . . . you are given the tasks to do and they don’t
look over your shoulder all the time.’

Most importantly, perhaps, the sponsors of the £1.5 million project
at SERC and the DTI are happy with the programme’s progress. ‘So far, it
looks very promising,’ says David Clark, director of programmes at SERC.
He says that the partnerships have been well managed and have changed the
attitudes of the students. ‘Working in a semi-industrial environment has,
I think, proved stimulating for them,’ he says.

The council hopes to make arrangements more flexible so that more PTPs
win funding. At present, the council spends £75 million on funding
for a combination of orthodox studentships – where graduates study under
an academic tutor for a doctorate – and Collaborative Awards in Science
and Engineering studentships. In CASE studentships, the subject of study
is agreed between a university and a company, and each supplies a supervisor.
Students spend at least three months of their three-year course in industry.

After the earlier setbacks for the Faraday ‘dynamo’, it now looks as
if things are really moving. Britain can only hope that the government
has the sense to keep the engine on. Michael Faraday would surely revolve
in his grave if the PTPs were abandoned, and if the principle named after
him fizzled out as rapidly as British industry did in the 1980s. The scheme
deserves success, because it could help to accelerate the revival of industry.
You never know, Britain may even get real Faraday centres one day.